When I was a girl

'When I was a girl/boy/child' usually prefaces a recitation of memories to which the generally, much younger listener, cannot relate, and may also  seem to them to be beyond the realm of possibility and believability. Like walking miles alone to school, having an outhouse, or not having hot water in your house. I don't remember having party-line, but we had a rotary dial phone and our phone number was CH4-1945. I also remember a little door outside the back door where bottles of milk seem to magically appear; I never did see the milkman. People who come from third-world countries would have fewer problems with some of these concepts than children who grew up more recently, in this country, who may not be able to relate in any way.

For me, born in a big city, things like outhouses and cold water flats were foreign, but for my husband, born a few years earlier, and growing up in rural Quebec, these things are his memories. I was born in Toronto, a large, sprawling city in Ontario. I considered myself a WASP, which was a newly created acronym at the time, for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. While it was originally used to describe a group of people who were white, had roots in Britain, and wre generally the more privileged class thus more likely to be found in positions of authority or power, to me it simply referred to my skin colour, my heritage and my parent's choice of religious belief. I didn't realize the other implications of the term at that time. My face and heritage are accidents of birth and beyond my control, but of the many flavours of Protestantism, I was raised a Baptist. 

Children of parents who practice a faith are automatically brought up in a life different from many of the people around them who either, do not have a religious tradition at all, or a different one. This does imply a better or superior, different, just different; kind of like speaking another dialect. My life was framed and formed by the practices and beliefs of the Baptist Church in which I was raised. 

I went to school during the week, then Sunday School on Sunday. Instead of Girl Guides, I went to Pioneer Girls and my brothers to Boys Brigade where we earned badges for nature craft and good citizenship like the Guides, but with a Biblical base underneath. Instead of knowing what songs were on the top 10 Hit List, I memorized hymns. Our social life was based on church activities and my friends were from church and very few from my neighbourhood. Our weekends were 2 services on Sunday and anything else that was on the church calendar.  As a baby, my name went on the Cradle Roll, my first 'membership'. I wasn't christened, but 'dedicated'. People were married in the church by the pastor that knew them, and many were buried in the same way. It was a contained community in many ways.

In my Pioneer Girl uniform

My mom often entertained at home. We had a big dining table that was my great-grandma's I think and I spent a lot of time under that table in tents made of blankets. The rest of the time, the table was sedately dressed in a lace tablecloth. It grew or shrank depending on the occasion, augmented by a series of leaves. When company was coming, the big coffee perk came out and all of my mom's pretty cups and saucers. The smell of coffee was unique to 'having company' ,as tea was what was regularly served at home. Sometimes the silver had to be polished, and the the special little spoons were retrieved for the tea cups.  Mom would have taken me to Dominion or A&P to have the bread sliced length-wise in the bakery so that special rolled sandwiches could be made. They had fillings like creamed cheese or bologna that has been scraped with a fork from a big piece of bologna then mixed with tartar sauce. Other sandwiches would be made from regular bread with fillings like salmon and egg, but cut in squares or diamonds and the crusts were always cut off. I remember all this as being very exciting.

I would see my extended family mostly on the occasions of special birthdays, marriages and of course, deaths. When my Grandpa was living, his birthday fell on July 1st, Dominion Day, at that time. My aunts, uncles and cousins would all arrive for a family picnic at High Park, which was a pretty big deal. After Grandpa died there were fewer of those occasions, mostly special anniversaries or the passing of a family member.

Wedding showers were often held at church, by and for the church family and maybe one other held at home by your mother for the aunts and cousins. My mother also held a trousseau tea for me, something which seems to be a lost pre-wedding ritual. This was a 'pretty tea cup' occasion, and its purpose was the display of the shower and wedding gifts, and to provide an opportunity to include neighbours or colleagues who may not have been invited to the wedding, to participate in wedding preparations. 

The collection of a "trousseau" was a common coming-of-age rite until approximately the 1950s; it was typically a step on the road to marriage. Often this collection of linen and clothing were saved in a cedar lined 'hope chest'.

The way that I was raised may be familiar and echo the patterns of many who were raised in a religious tradition. It was a strict upbringing; I was not allowed to play cards, go to movies, play outside or watch tv on Sundays. These were the things that set me apart when I had to leave the protection of that setting to go to school. The older I got the more difficult it was, like a culture shock, entering a foreign country and speaking another language. It may sound extreme but in the world I came from no one smoked, drank or swore, no one divorced or talked about sex. The sheltered world that I came from contained happy memories and many genuine and loving people, but it did not prepare me for, or give the the tools to, deal with the world outside of it. 

Now, many years later, and for many reasons, I do not follow that same path. My children have followed paths of their own as well. Those early roots and patterns still frame how I think because they are deep inside me. I still know how to speak, and understand, that language but now choose not to. It sometimes makes me feel like two different people and i have to work hard to find the one authentic me. This is a small attempt to more fully explain to my children who I am and where I emerged from. 

Postscript

 For me, the world wobbled yesterday when I heard the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth. As long as I have been on this earth, which is rapidly approaching 65 years, there has been a Queen. I sang 'God Save The Queen', 'Oh Canada' and recited the 'Lord's Prayer' throughout my school years. Her presence in my world was everywhere; on stamps, currency and walls in virtually every building. Regardless of your personal stand on the monarchy, whether it should exist, its usefulness or its efficacy over the years, Queen Elizabeth has been, and remains, deserving of respect as a monarch and a person. She has over the years deported herself, always, with poise, humour and tact and complete commitment to her task. There are very few persons in positions of power about whom this can be said. 'God Save The Queen'